


Alien Wine

by Atlanta Lea (Clevertoad)



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 02:30:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11980185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clevertoad/pseuds/Atlanta%20Lea
Summary: "Fandeloran Dynasty, 2866. Not the best year,” the Doctor added parenthetically. “But certainly not the worst. Should be quite palatable. A demure little vintage, with just a soupçon of impudence…”





	Alien Wine

**Author's Note:**

> Originally appeared long, long ago in the newsletter of the Unofficial Harry Sullivan Fan Club, The Lieutenant's Log, in the Footsie Notes section. (1985-1988ish)  
> Rating PG, co-author J. Stone

It had started out as a rather dull afternoon for the Brigadier, but that rare condition wasn’t destined to last. The arrival of ex-Captain Yates at UNIT HQ just happened to coincide with that of a racketing blue police box. As a matter of fact, the police box had the advantage of the Captain by several minutes, so that the welcomes were well underway as Yates was ushered into the room.

“Hello!” Sarah Jane greeted Mike enthusiastically. “We haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Well, hello, Miss Smith!” Mike’s face brightened at the sight of rather nicer scenery than was usually to be found in the Brigadier’s office. “Run into any spiders lately?”

“Captain Yates! Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise! Have a jellybaby.”

Having had his hand pumped with disconcerting heartiness, Mike goggled at the sweet he’d been given. “Thank you, er— um….”

“Doctor,” the Brigadier supplied. “I forgot, you wouldn’t have seen this one before.”

“Doctor?” repeated Mike, staring bemused at the trailing scarf. “Okay, if you say so.”

“We’re just back on an emergency mission,” Sarah explained. “The Doctor had to restock his jellybaby supply.”

“Had me quite worried for a moment there,” said the Brigadier jovially as he splashed a generous dollop of whisky into a glass. “Join us, Yates? It’s so seldom I’ve seen you without an alien menace on your heels, Doctor.” In fact, when he’d seen the TARDIS materialise in front of his file cabinet, his first reaction had been to ring the radar room to see if anything suspicious was showing up. “What brings you here, Mike?”

“Oh, er… This,” Mike pulled his jaw off the floor and himself together, dragging his eyes away from this decidedly inelegant new Doctor. He held out a dusty blue glass bottle, oddly shaped. “We’ve been doing a bit of renovation at the monastery, cleaning out and remodeling the cellar, and all that—”

“High time,” Sarah interjected, only too familiar with that spidery place.

“And we found this tucked in behind the wall. Cho Je is away just now – he said he was taking a sabbatical – and Tommy and I weren’t sure what to do with this. It doesn’t exactly look Earthly, does it?”

“Not by half.” Sarah took the bottle and tried to examine it. It was most curiously wrought, representing a creature of some distinctly unearthly sort – but she didn’t have a chance to see what sort, because the bottle was plucked carelessly from her hands. The Doctor squinted at the peculiar scribbling on the label. “Wait a minute!” she protested, but the Doctor was listening as well as usual. He paid her absolutely no attention.

“What is it, Doctor? Poison?” the Brigadier asked.

“No, of course not. Fandeloran Dynasty, 2866. Not the best year,” he added parenthetically. “But certainly not the worst. Should be quite palatable. A demure little vintage, with just a soupçon of impudence…”

“Do you mean it’s wine?” Sarah interrupted.

“Well, of course. Didn’t I just say so? Probably part of K’An Po’s private stock.” The Doctor unstoppered the bottle and sniffed delicately. “Well, perhaps a bit past its prime,” he said with regret. “Better take it back. Let’s have a look at that Space-Time Telegraph while I’m here – never know where you’re going to have another lot of Sontarans dropping in, eh, Brigadier?”

He drifted away, dragging Lethbridge-Stewart in his wake. Sarah Jane made a face at this departing back and picked up the bottle he’d abandoned. The creature depicted in the glass wouldn’t have won a beauty prize on any world. Sarah examined it curiously, uncorking the bottle to take a cautious sniff. “Wine, hmm? Look, Mike, it’s green! Doesn’t smell like mint, though.”

“Well, it wouldn’t necessarily, would it?”

Sarah ignored him and swirled the liquid around in the bottle. A faint, flowery perfume was released, teasing at her nose. She looked around for an empty glass. “Want some?”

“No, thanks,” Mike declined. “It’d probably go badly with whisky, and this is too good a whisky to waste. I say, you’re not really going to drink the stuff, are you?”

“Why not?”

“You don’t know what the effect would be on humans. Just because it’s not poisonous to _him_ doesn’t mean it’s good for us.”

“Nonsense. The Doctor would have said if it was dangerous.” But she eyed the glass a little less certainly, sniffing again.

“Your funeral,” Mike shrugged. “I wouldn’t do it.”

That was a challenge not to be resisted, of course. Sarah Jane took a defiant sip. Then another. She licked a stray drop off her upper lip, pondering the taste. “Hey, it’s good!” she exclaimed in surprise. “It tastes like… well, I don’t know exactly what, but it’s smashing. You should try some, Mike.”

“No thanks. I’m going to see what it does to you first.” He sipped his own glass of the Brigadier’s best as he watched her down the rest of her drink and pour herself another. “Any effect yet?”

“Not a one. I feel fine,” she declared, fixing her big hazel eyes on him. “How is the old monastery doing? How is Tommy now – did his cure last? And why is K’An–Po still calling himself Cho Je?”

“Not so many questions at once, please!” Mike begged. “Tommy’s doing quite well, thank you: he’s Cho Je’s assistant, and he can think circles around most of us. He’s still reading everything he can get his hands on, to catch up, but he says he’s not always sure he missed that much. K’An-Po is still Cho Je because it’s rather confusing to explain how one person can become two people before changing into the second one but still remaining the first…”

“I get it, I get it!” Sarah laughed. “I’ve gone through it too! What are you remodeling, anyway? I should think you’ve had enough of those cellars in your time.”

He told her about the expansion undertaken to accommodate the influx of new members. It was a subject close to his heart, and he was perfectly happy to wax eloquent for such a flatteringly attentive audience. It was only when he was describing the meditation classes he was leading that the intensity of the admiring gaze began to unnerve him slightly. It wasn’t that he minded admiration from Sarah Jane. No, not at all! But there was something unfamiliar in the quality of that gaze.

“Are you feeling quite all right, Sarah?” he broke off to ask.

“Wonderful,” she said dreamily. “Do you know, you’re kind of cute, Mike?”

Definitely out of character, reflected Mike, and definitely getting interesting. He reached over to take the bottle out of her hand – but before he could investigate, there was an interruption. Benton poked his head around the door.

“Captain?” he asked. “The lads in Motor Pool heard you were here and asked if you could pop ‘round before you go? Acton says he owes you a drink. Sorry to interrupt,” he added to Sarah. “They’re off duty in half an hour and we wanted to catch the Captain before he goes.”

“Oh, that’s okay, Sergeant.” She transferred the blinding smile up to Benton’s face, flustering that gentleman. “No, it isn’t Sergeant any more, is it?”

“It’s Warrant Officer, miss.”

“It’s well deserved.” Mike slapped him on the shoulder. “About time they gave you your due, Johnny! I’ll pop right over to see the lads.”

“We thought we might get up a poker game for tonight, if you can stick around for a bit?”

“Just like old times, eh? I owe Fell a rematch for the last game we had, come to think of it.”

“Are monks allowed to play poker?” Sarah interjected.

“I’m not really a monk,” Mike said.

“No?” she asked with a provocative flick of her lashes.

“No. Fortunately.” He hated to leave just at this promising juncture, but it wouldn’t take him long to set up plans for the game. He took the wine bottle with him, though.

“Hey!” she protested. “I was going to have a bit more of that!”

“I’ll bring it back later,” he promised. “Save my place, Sarah Jane?”

“Pooh,” said Sarah, turning her back on him with a sidelong glance over the shoulder. “I’ll just talk to my nice, big Benton, then…”

Mike ducked out, grinning; Benton cleared his throat nervously.

“Would you like some of the Brig’s whisky?” Sarah offered with vicarious generosity. “Mike went and took the wine – very selfish of him. It’s lovely stuff, not minty at all.”

“Er, yes, miss. I mean no, miss. I mean the Brig frowns on us drinking on duty, you know.”

“He’s a stuffed shirt. It’s very good whisky, so they tell me – I think it’s nasty stuff, myself, but to each his own.” She splashed a healthy portion into the glass and offered it to him with an enticing smile. “Come on! You could do with a bit of loosening up, Sergeant!”

If she meant his uniform collar, she was dead on the money, gulped the warrant officer. He tugged at it surreptitiously to loosen the sudden constriction at his neck, and manfully ignored a similar problem elsewhere. Seldom had he been quite so relieved to hear rescue at hand in the echo of his commander’s voice. “That’s the Brig now, miss. I need to get back to my desk – if you’ll excuse me?” He saluted her, did the same to the Brigadier and the Doctor as they entered, then beat a hasty retreat.

Safe at his own desk, Benton pondered the incident for a few minutes before picking up his half-written report. Oh, for more rank, or at least more time and a better setting – it was a shame to have to turn down an offer like that. One thing you could say about the Doctor, he sighed reminiscently: no matter how much his taste in apparel changed, you could always count on his eye for the birds.

 

Sarah meanwhile, left with a glass of whisky and no one to give it to, hailed the newcomers cheerfully. “Everyone’s ducking out on me,” she complained. “Mike’s gone to play poker and Benton’s shuffling his paperwork. Would you like some whisky?”

“Give it to Alastair,” the Doctor recommended. “I’m still working on mine.”

She duly passed the glass, as she observed, “You make your men work much too hard, Brigadier.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Smith?”

“Tisn’t fair! Here’s my poor, sweet Sergeant Benton too scared to have a little, teensy sip of whisky, and here you are on your second glass.” She waved the bottle for emphasis, oblivious to the reaction from her astonished audience. “You ought to promote him to at least Captain – he’s dishier than Mike. And a lot nicer, too. _He_ wouldn’t have nicked the bottle.”

The audience looked from her to each other. “Doctor?” asked the Brigadier.

“She must have had some of that wine. I’m surprised it’s had quite this fast an effect, though. How much did you drink, Sarah Jane?”

“Not very much,” she protested. “Mike took it with him.”

“Didn’t mix the grain with the gammagrape, did you? I’m not sure what that vintage would do with whisky mixed in.”

“Blecch,” was Sarah’s reaction. “I hate whisky!”

“Thank heavens for small favours,” said the Brigadier. “Are you feeling well, Miss Smith?”

“I feel fine!” she chirped. “Want a demonstration?” She eyed him up and down critically. “You’re not too bad y’self, y’know. The moustache really ought to go – too bristly. But you’ve got smashing knees. You should loosen up and show them more often.”

“I-beg-your-pardon?”

“You know, in those kilts you were wearing in Scotland. They looked good on you.”

Sadly torn between shock and a certain flattered smugness, the Brigadier could only gobble beneath his maligned moustache. It was left to the Doctor to deal with the situation. “Better get her into bed.”

“Yes, please,” agreed Sarah brightly, but was ignored.

“It shouldn’t take more than twelve hours to sleep this off. Is there someplace around here to put her?”

“Plenty of space in the guest wing,” the Brig answered. “Let me get my keys.”

Lethbridge-Stewart unearthed the necessary items from his desk drawer. The Doctor confiscated the whisky bottle and tucked it in one of his capacious pockets. They each took one of Sarah’s arms. “Come along, Sarah Jane,” the Doctor encouraged as they hustled her down the corridors to the allotted room. It was a comfortable bedroom, usually reserved for officers from other UNIT teams or visiting dignitaries. She raised no objections to it – until it dawned on her that no one was going to join her there.

“’Ey! Where’s everybody going? The party’s just about to begin!”

“It’s been postponed. You need a nice little nap,” the Doctor prescribed. “You just go in there and lie down, there’s a good girl.”

“How about if you join me?” she suggested, with a sideways smile from under her lashes and a firm grip on his scarf. “A nice little nap might do you some good too.”

“No, no, I’ll be fine. People need less sleep as they get older, you know – and I’m a bit too old for this,” he added _sotto voce_ to the Brigadier. But not _sotto_ enough – Sarah Jane heard him.

“You’re not too old, Doctor! You’re in awfully good shape for seven-hundred-and-some. Could pass for forty at midnight on a dim planet.”

It was the Brigadier’s turn to snort at his friend’s discomfiture. Sarah reached up to put her hands on either side of the Doctor’s face, so he had to look at her. “Look into my eyes, Doctor,” she intoned. “Keep looking into my eyes. You don’t need to breathe… You feel nothing, do you understand? Nothing…” Her fingertips brushed gently over his eyelids, closing his eyes – which popped open again almost immediately, twice their normal size. He bundled her into the room.

“Get some sleep, Sarah Jane,” he said hastily. “You’ll feel better in a few hours.”

“I feel perfectly fine now!” she wailed, but he’d already shut the door and turned the key.

The Doctor and the Brigadier escaped back to the office, a slightly guilty look on the former’s face. “I though she didn’t like that sort of thing,” the Doctor muttered.

“Well, look who she learned it from,” snapped the Brigadier.

 

On the other side of the door, Sarah jiggled the locked handle. Old spoilsports! It was much too early to go to bed – not alone, anyway. She slumped down onto the bed for awhile, pouting. See if she ever told the Brig about his legs again. She just wouldn’t tell him the next time the wind came up! Then she got up and wandered around the room, checking for escape routes. But the door was firmly latched, and the window a little too high to jump out: the wine hadn’t clouded quite all of her brain yet. She couldn’t do it safely, unless… She leaned a little farther out to locate the source of an approaching noise. The whistle was familiar, and so was the whistler who rounded the corner of the building.

Harry, coming back to H.Q. from an errand in town, answered an unexpected feminine hail and was delighted to see Sarah Jane leaning out of a window like Juliet from her balcony, calling to him.

“Well, hullo, old thing!” he came over to greet her. “We didn’t expect to see you to pop in. Did you come with the Doctor?” Past association with that eccentric Time Lord prompted him to look about hastily. “I say, it’s not another invasion, is it?”

“We’re just here to pick up some jelly babies,” she reassured him. “He ran out and he says they’re one thing the TARDIS synthesizer can’t get right. Here, give me a hand, Harry?” She swung her legs out to perch on the ledge. An agreeable soul, he complied and found himself with a pleasant armful of feminine charms.

He was surprised, but not displeased, to get a warmly welcoming hug from his old battle companion. “Still going for the fastest route, eh, Sarah?” he teased as he set her down. “What’s wrong with the door?”

“It’s locked,” she answered reasonably.

“Why’s it locked?”

“He locked it.”

“Who?”

“Yes, him. Never mind that, Harry.”

“Why would the Doctor lock you in? He must’ve had a reason.” A sudden alarm crossed Harry’s face as visions of duplicated Zygon-Sarahs danced across his mind. “I say, you’re not… a… an…” He backed up a pace, toward the flowerbed behind him.

“Twit!” said Sarah, which reassured him on that point. Definitely his Sarah Jane, but just as definitely there was something odd going on here. He backed up another pace as she advanced on him.

“Why don’t we go along to the Brig’s office and see the Doctor, shall we? I’m looking forward to seeing the old boy – been ages, you know.”

“Later.” Sarah latched onto his coat button with one hand, while the other slid up to his neck. “It _has_ been ages. Aren’t you going to say you’re glad to see me?”

“Well, yes, of course I am, but you’re not usually this glad to see me. I mean, the last time we ran into each other, you just shook my hand instead of… Er, you know what I mean… Hadn’t we better go see the Doctor now, old girl?”

“Stop burbling, Harry!”

“But why are you – YOW!” yelped Harry. His backward motion had taken him into the embrace of a large, enthusiastic rosebush; the reactive forward motion propelled him into an equally enthusiastic but rather less painful one.

The stinging thorns in his backside couldn’t distract him entirely. “Oh, I say…” he mumbled before he was prevented from saying anything for a good few minutes. He was somewhat dazed and certainly dizzy by the time she let him breathe again. “What – ?”

“What d’you think?” Sarah trilled. “You’re awfully slow, Harry.” She kissed him again, then pulled back to survey him critically. “But definitely a dish. You wanna?”

It didn’t take medical training to deduce a probable cause for this highly uncharacteristic behaviour. Not that he minded, mind you, and not that he wasn’t breathing very hard as he untwined her arms from around his neck. But he knew his duty as a doctor and a gentleman.

“What have you been drinking, old thing?”

“I’m not a thing, Harry! And I can’t see why everyone assumes I’m drunk when all I had was the tiniest sip of wine…”

Half the bottle was closer to his professional estimate. “Of course you’re not drunk,” he soothed. “Just a little dizzy perhaps, or a bit unfocussed?” Her face was flushed to a becoming colour and her pupils wider than usual, as he could see from this unprofessional position.

“A bit sleepy, maybe,” she conceded. “Tell you what, let’s go get the wine from Mike, if he hasn’t pigged it all himself. There’s rather a nice bed in that room they stuck me in.”

“I think a little sleep would do you wonders, old girl. I do mean _sleep_ ,” he added hastily as her eyes brightened hopefully. “By yourself. I mean, without me…”

“Oh, pooh! You’re no fun,” she pouted. “I’ll just go find someone else to talk to, then, if you’re going to be such an old stick in the mud.”

A vision of a barracks’ full of randy soldiers swam before Harry’s horrified eyes. “NO! I mean, I’d be perfectly happy to… Um, why don’t I take you out to dinner, shall I? A nice meal with lots of protein might help so—er, wake you up.”

“That sounds good, come to think of it,” Sarah decided. “I never did get my tea. D’you want to go now?”

“I, er… I’ll need to get a pass to leave the base again, and change out of this uniform. It’ll take a while,” Harry improvised. “Why don’t you climb back in and wait for me in your room, just in case the Doctor wants to check on you, eh? You can lie down and catch a bit of a nap and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

She had to stifle a yawn as she considered. “Well, maybe. How long will it take you?”

“Perhaps an hour,” Harry lied manfully. “I know this nice little restaurant in Kensington: candlelight and soft music and excellent steaks. I’ll go make a booking for eight, shall I?”

“Sounds loverly.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him again. “You will come back, now, won’t you? Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he swore, and hoped she couldn’t see the fingers crossed behind his back.

Sarah let him hoist her back up over the windowsill and blew him a kiss before she wandered toward the bed. She might as well rest her eyes until the sun went down. Harry made a noisy show of whistling away around the corner. Then he snuck back to crouch beneath the window, rose thorns and all, to guard the exit till she’d had time to fall asleep.

 

* * * * * *

 

But the sun had gone down and was well up again before it finally intruded itself on Sarah Jane’s eyelids. She peeled one open and forced herself to focus.

That was a mistake.

Her eyes hurt when she opened them. Her arm hurt when she reached up to cover her eyes. Her eyes hurt when she pried them open again to peer at her arm. Sarah Jane let her head fall back on the pillow and employed all of the more descriptive language she’d acquired in a Fleet Street career.

After a few more minutes, she tried to take stock of her surroundings. The last thing she remembered clearly was drinking alien wine with Mike: beyond that was only a haze. But there was a nice, soft bed beneath her, so she wasn’t in a dungeon. When she peered around through slitted eyes, she saw a neat but impersonal room, with a twentieth-century Earth-type electric clock and teapot. Investigation confirmed that she was fully dressed except for her shoes. And she had all the symptoms of a classic hangover.

Action was clearly going to be necessary. Groaning, Sarah dragged herself into a vertical position. She tugged her clothes into some kind of order, tugged vainly at her tangled hair. She stumbled out of a now-unlocked door.

The building seemed familiar – as she traversed the long corridor, she determined that she was in UNIT Headquarters. So far, so good. Even better, she found the guest wing bathroom, so she could deal with biological necessities and splash some water on her face. It didn’t help much, but she nerved herself to continue the journey.

The first person she ran into was Mike Yates, who’d also stayed the night after a successful evening at cards with his old colleagues. He smiled when he saw her, the smile widening to a grin as he took in her manifest condition. “The dead arose, and was seen by many!”

“Not so loud!” she begged.

“Hangover, eh? I told you not to drink it.”

She wished she’d listened to him – but she wasn’t about to tell him so. “I hope they cleaned you out at that poker game. Serve you right.”

She started in the general direction of the Brigadier’s office, and Mike fell in beside her. “Temper, temper! You were a lot more friendly last night,” Mike teased. “That must’ve been pretty good wine. Two glasses and ten minutes and you were looking for someone to snog. Maybe we should analyse this stuff and try to duplicate the formula – it might go over great at parties.”

Sarah eyed him with acute, if temporary, dislike. “It must’ve been pretty strong if I was flirting with you!”

“Oh, I wasn’t the only one,” he grinned. “Not by a long shot, from what I heard…”

A faint alarm bell went off in her head, making her wince again. “What did I—? Never mind.”

“You don’t remember?” Mike’s grin became positively fiendish. He started whistling as they walked toward the front of the building. The sound echoed shrilly within the painful cavities that constituted her brain this morning. She told him to shut up and staggered into the main office.

The TARDIS was still parked in front of the filing cabinet, which relieved the worst of her fears. At least the Doctor was still here. “Good morning, Captain,” Benton greeted. “Good morning, Miss Smith. Are you, um, feeling well?”

“No, I’m not, and Cock Robin here isn’t helping any.”

“She doesn’t like us this morning, Johnny,” Mike explained in mock sorrow. “We should’ve taken her up on it last night, while she was still in such a good mood. Ah well, I’ve got to pop ‘round to collect from Acton – the temperature might be a bit higher there,” he added as Sarah glared at him. He was singing as he went out, to the same tune he’d been whistling. “’ _Kiss me goodnight, Sergeant Benton…_ ’”

“Bugger off, Michael!” It was with relief that she turned to Benton. “Where’s the Doctor?”

“He’s with the Brig, miss, or he was last time I saw him. Er, would you like me to go get him?” Benton asked nervously.

“No, I’ll go myself. How much did you win at that silly poker game?”

“Sweet F… er, I mean, nothing, miss. My concentration was off – something had… um, come up…” The Warrant Officer was scarlet right up to his ears, and the colour deepened under Sarah’s gaze. “If you’ll excuse me, miss? I need to go check out the radar room…” He escaped, tripping over his own large feet in his haste. Sarah stared after him in astonishment for a moment before she made her painful way to the Brigadier’s office.

 

The whisky glasses had been cleared away, and the ugly little glass creature smirked demurely to itself on the Brigadier’s blotter. The Doctor and the Brigadier were ensconced with tea and a plate of cheese and biscuits, as Sarah noted sourly. They looked somewhat heavy-eyed but pleased with themselves, by which she deduced that the old friends had probably been up chewing the fat for much of the night.

“Careful there, lads, or you’ll ruin your boyish figures!” Sarah had long subscribed to the theory that the best defence was a strategic offense.

“You seemed to like his boyish figure well enough last night,” the Doctor observed mildly.

The Brigadier raised one eyebrow. “Jealous, Doctor?”

“Nonsense, Alastair. You must remember that her judgment was seriously impaired.”

“In vino, veritas,” the Brigadier observed.

Sarah stepped between them, her hands on her hips. “Look here, what made you think I was drunk?”

“Well, we began to have a suspicion when you told Alastair how much you liked his knees in the kilts,” the Doctor told her.

“And when you tried to hypnotise the Doctor, we were quite sure of it,” riposted the Brigadier.

The alarm bell jangled again, rather more loudly. “So who put me to bed?”

“Harry, apparently. You seem to have jumped out of the window, but he said he got you back in,” the Doctor explained off-handedly. “Nothing to do but let you sleep it off. You’ll be right as rain in a few more hours; shouldn’t be any side effects once the last of it gets out of your bloodstream.”

The way she felt now, it might not be worth it to survive a few more hours. “Are you sure about that?”

“Sullivan checked with the Doctor last night to be sure there was nothing harmful in the wine,” the Brigadier assured her. “He gave you a Vitamin B shot after you were asleep.”

That accounted for the sore arm, anyway. “How did you know it wasn’t going to kill me?” she asked the Doctor accusingly.

“Nothing toxic in it, just intoxicating.”

“You might have warned me before I drank it,” she muttered.

“You didn’t ask me,” the Doctor pointed out with pop-eyed innocence.

That was unanswerable, of course. “I’m going to go get some aspirin from Harry,” Sarah announced, dragging the shreds of her dignity about her. “Don’t you dare take off without me, Doctor!”

“Cross my heart,” he promised, propping his feet on the Brigadier’s desk. “We’ll be right here.”

Sarah made a regal exit and groped her way towards Harry’s office. She’d never been that drunk before, not even at university and there’d been some good parties at university. Telling the Brig about his knees? Lord, she’d never live this one down! But at least that was all she’d done. She couldn’t possibly have done worse than trying to hypnotise the Doctor.

Or so she thought until she got to the Sickbay.

 

Harry was stretched out on his stomach on one of the two hospital beds, thumbing idly through a medical journal. He too looked tired but decidedly cheerful; like Mike, he was whistling when she came in. But he hoisted himself politely upright when he saw her.

“Well, hullo, old thing! How are you feeling?”

“Bloody awful, if you really want to know.”

“Let’s have a squint at you, then.” He tipped up her chin so he could look into her eyes. “Your pupils look all right. How about your hands and feet? Any numbness or tingling?”

“Stop playing doctor, Harry!” She swatted his hand away irritably.

“Just making sure. I didn’t know you’d had anything but plain old Earth wine until I ran into Yates, and you were well asleep by then. I’ve been a bit worried about side effects. Not that it wasn’t an interesting experiment,” he added. “That stuff seemed to have a much livelier effect than what they serve in the ordinary. Did you notice any difference in your usual reactions? I’ve never seen you tiddly before.”

“I’m the last one to ask! Everybody’s been telling _me_ what I did.”

“Well, you seem to have been one over the eight just a few minutes after you started drinking the wine, from what Yates said.”

“And then what?”

“The Doctor said he put you to bed, but you didn’t want to go to sleep. It can’t have been very long after that that I came by, and you certainly weren’t sleepy then.”

“And?”

“You jumped out of the window right into my arms. You don’t remember any of that?” Harry couldn’t quite suppress a reminiscent grin. “Never knew how friendly you could get, my girl. You were chirping merry at that point, ready to see the dawn in, but it didn’t take you long to fall asleep afterwards… I say, are you feeling all right?” he broke off to ask as he caught sight of her expression.

The alarm bell was clanging at top volume now. Sarah Jane advanced menacingly on him. Harry retreated till he fetched up against the lab counter, and got forcibly reminded of last night’s roses. Sarah Jane got a death grip on his stethoscope. “WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?”

“You got drunk, old girl,” he explained patiently.

“I know that! Did I flirt with you too?”

“It wasn’t flirting, exactly,” Harry temporised. “It was a bit more definite than that…”

“Whatever it was, what did we _do_ about it?”

“You kissed me. Then you, er… offered…”

“ _What_ did I offer?”

“Just about everything, it sounded like – but I didn’t take you up on it.”

“Well, thank God for– why not?” she demanded. “Didn’t you want to?”

“Yes,” he admitted, incurably honest. “But it isn’t done if the lady is not herself. You’d obviously looked on the wine when it was red—”

“It was green,” she interjected.

“Whatever the colour, you’d had a snootful, my girl!” Harry said. “You’ve certainly never kissed _me_ like that before. At any rate, it was clear I couldn’t let you loose on the base in that condition. I promised you a nice steak dinner – lying through my teeth – and talked you into taking a nap till I could get changed for the date. Then I hoisted you back through the window and waited till you fell asleep.”

“And that’s all there was to it?” Her relief was boundless.

“Absolutely all, on my word of honour. I checked with the Doctor after I’d talked to Yates, and gave you an injection to try to minimise the after-effects. Then I went on to the barracks and took a _very_ cold shower,” he said emphatically. “And now would you mind letting me move away from this counter? You backed me into a rosebush last night, and I’m still a bit sore.”

“A rosebush?”

“A large rosebush. It took me fifteen minutes to get all of the thorns out.”

Sarah started laughing, and after a minute he grinned too, albeit ruefully. “You owe me a steak dinner,” she declared, sticking to her best strategy. “Officers and gentlemen should always keep their word! And it sounds like I owe you a few Elastoplasts.”

“Are you offering to apply ‘em?” Harry retorted. “Fair enough, I owe you a steak to uphold the Navy’s honour. Ask me sometime when you’re sober.”

“For the steak or the Elastoplast?”

“The steak. I’d as soon stay out of the briars, thank you.”

“I’m glad it was you who came along,” Sarah said. “Do you have any aspirin, Harry? I’ve got the world’s worst hangover!”


End file.
